New Mitski video: Nobody

Directed by Christopher Good. From Be The Cowboy, out August 17 on Dead Oceans.

I really loved Mitski’s song “Your Best American Girl” with its epic rock and roll crescendo and its sad lyrics (“You’re an all-American boy / I guess I couldn’t help trying to be your best American girl”). I love the video, too, and its message that if you can’t be with the one you love then the next best thing is to bang the shit out of your guitar.

In “Nobody” she trades her Les Paul for a disco Strat, but she’s still lonely.

And I don’t want your pity
I just want somebody near me
Guess I’m a coward
I just want to feel alright

This video is cool. It reminds me of some of the artwork of Yoko Ono, especially the bit with the magnifying glass and the tiny writing. In Yoko’s piece, the message was affirmative.

That’s the piece that made John Lennon fall in love with Yoko. He later admitted, “It’s a great relief when you get up the ladder and you look through the spyglass and it doesn’t say ‘no’ or ‘fuck you’ or something. It said ‘yes’.”

But in Mitski’s video, the message is: “Nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody nobody.” Which, of course, is way darker.

Mitski: web, twitter, amazon, apple, spotify, wiki.

Video: Mitski – “Geyser”